Hills Like White elephantE
Hills Like White Elephants, written by Ernest Hemingway, is a story that takes place in Spain while a man and woman wait for a train. The story is set up as a dialogue between the two, in which the man is trying to convince the woman to do something she is hesitant in doing. Through out the story, Hemingway uses metaphors to express the characters' opinions and feelings. Hills Like White Elephants displays the differences in the way a man and a woman view pregnancy and abortion. The woman looks at pregnancy as a beautiful aspect of life. In the story the woman's pregnancy is implied through their conversation. She refers to the near by hills as elephants; "They look like white elephants" (464). She is comparing the hills to her own situation, pregnancy. "They're lovely hills. They really don't look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees" (465). Just as the hills have their distinct beauty to her, she views pregnancy in the same fashion making the reference to the hills having skin-an enlarged mound forming off of what was once flat. The man views pregnancy just the opposite. When the girl is talking about the white elephants and agrees that the man has never seen one, his
The man feels that if the girl does not have the abortion his freedom will be taken from him. He feels the additional responsibility would limit his opportunities and thus his freedom. When the girl says, "It's ours," referring to everything the world has to offer, the man replies, "No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you can never get it back" (466). He is telling her that once they take 'it'-their freedom-away they will not be able to reclaim it. response is, "I might have, just because you say I haven't doesn't prove anything" (464). This shows the defensive nature of the man, and when the woman implies the he is unable to differentiate between what is beautiful and what is not. This is a major metaphor in the story explaining the man's situation at the end. He took the bags (questions) to the tracks looking for the train (an answer), but saw nothing coming. The answers to the questions he is looking for are not going to come to him; instead he has to wait and see what happens. In the bar, he was the only one not waiting patiently for the train, implying that the others are at ease with the situation they are in, not anxious to overcome it. When he returns to the woman, the man asks if she feels better, hoping that the situation would have fixed itself in the time he was gone so he could move on in his life.
Some common words found in the essay are:
White Elephants, It's It's, Ernest Hemingway, white elephants, Hills White, hills white elephants, hills white, Elephants Goshgarian, Cited Page, looks pregnancy, wouldn't mind, views pregnancy, people waiting, woman implies, 465 woman, pregnancy beautiful, woman feels,
Approximate Word count = 1015
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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